A slightly acidic space for commentary, mixed with sweet undertones of optimism, and occasionally garnished with a cherry of insight.
Pample the Moose is the blog of Matthew Hayday, an associate professor in the History Department at the University of Guelph. The assorted musings here are his, and do not reflect the positions of the university.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Water quality

Still no official word on the full causes of the Norwalk-type virus affecting Mount Allison students, although there have apparently been a few new cases. However, the rapid spread does appear to have been halted. For the time being, I'm still healthy, as are most of my colleagues - no doubt to the relief of all our friends and family from across the country who called and emailed us in response to the national news coverage this story has received.

It is not comforting, however, the day after this outbreak, to have our taps running brown water again. Consistently clean running water is not a hallmark of Sackville, New Brunswick. At least once per month, dirty water flows from the taps on the town's main water lines. It's disgusting and primitive, and definitely does not inspire confidence. It's no wonder that people initially suspected that the town water was at fault for the outbreak of sickness. At some point in the future, I'm sure that it will be. I'm having one of those days where I'm sure that I'm living in a Walkerton in the making.

2 Comments:

We (the people living in the apartment on Jones Ave.) have brown water about 3 times a week and sometimes more often!! When I first moved to Sackville, three years ago, from Springhill Nova Scotia the water here was a vast improvement! Springhill would have boil orders for weeks at a time.... one time a boil order lasted for well over one year! Although S'hill now has, as of this week, a 3 million dollar water treatment plant up and running. Hopefully Sackville will follow the same road and put some money into a new treatment plant, or at least upgrade it, and fix the water lines.